Medicine. 317 



During the greater part of the century under 

 review, and especially the early periods of it, me- 

 dical science was cultivated with most success in 

 the Middle and Southern States. This was, pro- 

 bably, among other circumstances, chiefly owing 

 to the following causes. In those States many of 

 the physicians were Europeans, who had enjoyed 

 all the advantages of the best schools of physic. 

 It was more common among them than in the 

 Eastern States, owing to the greater wealth of the 

 former, to send young gentlemen to complete their 

 medical education in foreign universities. A taste 

 for researches in natural history also appeared, in a 

 number of instances, particularly in the States of 

 JSoiith-Carolina, Virginia^ Pennsylvania, and New- 

 York, long before a similar taste was formed to the 

 Eastward , and the tendency of such pursuits to en- 

 lighten the minds, and extend the inquiries of phy- 

 sicians, is too obvious to require elucidation. 



One of the earliest publications in America*" on 

 a medical subject, v/as an essay on the Iliac Pas- 

 sion, by Dr. Cadwallader, a respectable physi- 

 cian of Philadel]»hia, printed about the year 1740, 

 in which the author opposes, with considerable 

 talents and learning, the then common mode of 

 treating that disease.' About the same time, Dr. 



r Before this, William Bull, the first native of South-Caroh'na, and 

 probably among the first natives of America, who obtained a degree in 

 medicine, defended and published, in 1734, at the University of Leydcn, his 

 inaugural thesis, De Colica Pictonum. He was a pupil of the great Boer- 

 haave; and is quoted by Dr. Van Swieten, in the following very re- 

 spectful terms : Hac Colica in regioiiibjis Amcricte 7}2cridloJ2alibus ta?JT frcquens 

 est, rtt fere pro rnorho Endcmio hahari poss'it ; Jit'i ab eruditissimo -viro Gu LI ELMO 

 Bull, i/i his oris nato, et nunc fdiciter ibi medicinam exerccate, stepius audiviy 

 qui et pitlchram de hoc 7norbo scripsit dissertatioiiem inauguralem^ quam in Acade- 

 Vila Lugduno Batava defendit anno 1 734. Vide GerarDI L. B. Van Swi eteW 

 Co:nmc!itarla, tomus tertius, p. 357. 



s For several of the names and facts here stated, respecting the early- 

 medical writers of America, the author is indebted to the Revic-w of the 

 Improvements of Medicine^ by Dr. Ram SAY, of Charleston, before quoted. 

 Tlie learning and talents displayed by this gentleman, both as an historiari 

 and medical philosopher, entitle him to a distinguished place among the 

 benefactors and ornaments of his country. 



